'I was not aware of error I made until told about it'

A senior official with the Transport Ministry said he was unaware of a mistake he had made in working out the cost per square feet (psf) for the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) land until he was informed about it last year.P Chandrasekaran,56, a former principal assistant secretary in the ministry's maritime division, told the corruption trial of Dr Ling Liong Sik that until then, he had assumed the RM25psf for the 999.5-acre plot did not include an interest of six percent.

"When did you first realise your understanding was wrong?" asked Ling's lawyer Wong Kian Kheong.

Chandrasekaran: When the police asked me to go through the documents... if my memory serves me right, it was in 2010, last year.

Wong: Did the police explain to you?

Chandrasekaran: Police inform me the RM25 included interest.

The witness, who is now with the aviation division, told the High Court in Kuala Lumpur today it was investigating officer Mohd Rosni Mohd Lazim who helped him to understand the matter.

“So, ASP Mohd Rosni explained to you (that) your understanding was wrong. Anything else that made you change your understanding?” asked Wong during cross-examination.

"The newspapers," replied Chandrasekaran .

The civil servant was chided for his mistakes yesterday that when he admitted to informing Ling that the RM25psf valuation for the Pulau Indah plot excluded interest.

In a Oct 14, 2000, memorandum to his direct boss, retired deputy secretary-general Abdul Rahman Mohd Noor, Chandrasekaran said the Valuation and Property Services Department' (JPPH) had valued the land based on a "special value of RM25psf with a 10-year repayment period", which comes up to a total of RM903.9 million, excluding interest of six percent a year.

Ling is charged with deceiving the government by concealing the fact that an interest rate of 7.5 percent per annum was paid in excess in the purchase of the PKFZ land at RM25psf.

Yesterday, the court heard that Chandrasekaran's "mistake" bumped up the JPPH's special value of RM21psf to RM25, in a letter written to land owner Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSB) on Oct 2, 2000.

KDSB's executive director Idris Mat Jani replied to that letter on Oct 5, accepting the offer and the terms and conditions that followed.Chandrasekaran said that Ling knew of the terms agreed to in a memo dated Oct 14.

Did not inform ministry of his 'misunderstanding'

However, even upon learning of his mistake last year, Chandrasekaran said, he did not write a note to inform the ministry of his "misunderstanding".

He also agreed that he had "no personal knowledge" in how the valuers had come up with their valuation.He added that he had also read the newspapers on the issue and only then realised his mistake.

Ling, the former transport minister, faces a charge of deceiving the government by concealing an additional interest rate of 7.5 percent per annum to the cabinet for the purchase of the 999.5-acre plot for the mega transhipment hub.

He is said to have committed the offence at the Prime Minister's Office in Putrajaya between Sept 25 and Nov 6, 2002.

Ling is accused of having committed deception with the knowledge it could cause wrongful losses to the government , despite being bound by a fiduciary duty to protect the government.

Ling also faces two optional charges:

• Cheating the government by not revealing to the cabinet the facts relating to the interest rate; and

• Cheating the cabinet into believing that the facts relating to the purchase of the land at the rate of RM25 psf and interest rate at 7.5 percent were approved and agreed to by the JPPH, an agency under the Finance Ministry, when he knew there was no such consent.

The hearing before judge Ahmadi Asnawi resumes on Sept 12.

Source : http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/172791